Over 350 thousand Raspberry Pi $35 computers ordered

The Raspberry Pi non-profit foundation working with two companies to manufacture and distribute $35 computers to educational institutions, hobbyists, and anyone else looking for a dirt cheap, tiny, low-power computer.

The first Raspberry Pi units started shipping to customers this weekend, and they’ve received pretty positive reviews. Even if the device is kind of sluggish for a PC and there isn’t much software optimized for the platform yet, it’s hard to hate a $35 computer.

Now both of the two companies selling the Rapsberry Pi have confirmed that it’s a pretty hot product — over 350 thousand orders have already been placed.

The folks at element14 say that anyone who pre-ordered a Raspberri Pi before April 18th should receive their shipment before the end of June, 2012 even if they received a note earlier saying that shipments might be delayed until August.

If you’re wondering why an item ordered in April won’t show up until June, though, it’s because the Raspberry Pi units are being built on demand. There probably aren’t 100 thousand of them lying around yet. They still need to be built before they can be shipped out.

The Raspberry Pi features a 700 MHz ARM11 processor, HD video support, 256MB of RAM, 2 USB ports, an Ethernet jack, HDMI output, an audio jack and SD card slot for storage. It doesn’t include a case, but you can pick one up from ModMyPi.

Update: The article has been updated to reflect pre-orders from both element14 and RS Components as of April 19, 2012. An earlier draft only mentioned 100,000 pre-orders from element14.